Geisha Kow­lessar

The Po­lice Ser­vice yes­ter­day im­ple­ment­ed fresh an­ti-crime mea­sures as it launched an "all out war" against crim­i­nals in the wake of nine mur­ders which marred the week­end.

The de­ci­sion was tak­en af­ter a meet­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Em­manuel George and the top brass of the ser­vice, in­clud­ing act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son and the Chief of De­fence Staff Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ken­rick Ma­haraj.

The meet­ing, which took place at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in Port-of-Spain, last­ed for two to three hours.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Richard­son de­scribed the meet­ing as "cor­dial, long and fruit­ful," not­ing sev­er­al is­sues were dis­cussed.

He ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that the po­lice were en­gaged in a "war" with the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

"We have re­alised we are in a war and one in which we will en­gage the en­e­my in a very frontal at­tack," Richard­son said.

"We will not re­treat. We are go­ing all out. I re­peat, we will not re­treat."

Say­ing he was sad­dened by the num­ber of lives which were tak­en by the gun or oth­er­wise, Richard­son added, "It is of great dis­tress that we have record­ed two more mur­ders over the week­end."

With­out re­veal­ing specifics of the new ini­tia­tives, Richard­son said the Po­lice Ser­vice was work­ing on "cer­tain in­tel­li­gence in a very stead­fast way" and it would act on this in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner and would bring the crim­i­nals to their knees.

Asked if he was pleased with the work of his of­fi­cers, Richard­son said he was "more than sat­is­fied." He said each day of­fi­cers risked their lives and were go­ing above and be­yond the call of du­ty.

"I am more than sat­is­fied with the com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion of my of­fi­cers. When the rest of the na­tion is asleep they are out there work­ing all hours, night and day," he added.

Call­ing for cit­i­zens to part­ner more with the Po­lice Ser­vice, Richard­son said this was crit­i­cal in the shar­ing of in­for­ma­tion. Such part­ner­ship, he added, must al­so in­clude the me­dia.

Echo­ing the same sen­ti­ments yes­ter­day was Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Em­manuel George, who said the po­lice need­ed the sup­port of every­one. He said it was al­so un­fair for the of­fi­cers to be con­stant­ly crit­i­cised.

"The pop­u­la­tion and even the me­dia must do their job and they must sup­port the po­lice, the po­lice need the sup­port of every one," George said.

"If we don't have the po­lice then we will move from a civilised so­ci­ety to one of an­ar­chy."

The min­is­ter al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims, say­ing he was cer­tain they were "dev­as­tat­ed."

"When I met with the po­lice com­mis­sion­er and oth­er stake­hold­ers this morn­ing (yes­ter­day) we spoke at length about the is­sue...the mur­ders," George said.

"There is on­go­ing ac­tiv­i­ty and I am as­sured this will halt the es­ca­la­tion of mur­ders."

Pressed on when the "on­go­ing ac­tiv­i­ty" took ef­fect, George said it was "al­ready in place."

He said be­cause of the sen­si­tive na­ture of the an­ti-crime mea­sures, it could not be pub­li­cal­ly dis­cussed.

Asked if he was pleased with the per­for­mance of the po­lice, George gave the Po­lice Ser­vice a good rat­ing. He said, how­ev­er, "one could nev­er be pleased with the amount of crime tak­ing place."

"The Po­lice Ser­vice is do­ing a fair­ly good job. Se­ri­ous crimes have gone down by some 30 per cent when com­pared to the same pe­ri­od last year.

"But every se­ri­ous crime and every mur­der com­mit­ted is one of con­cern," George said.

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